


The Consulting Conspiracy

by ScrappyHolmes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, John Is a Good Boyfriend, M/M, Mild Emetophobia Warning, Mycroft is a Berk, Sherlock is Trans btw just in case you don't know what I'm about son, aliens but not alienlock, sherlock gets drunk on wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4364492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScrappyHolmes/pseuds/ScrappyHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is the love of my life, holding my hand while he throws up in the sink and raves on about aliens in the middle of the night. Amazing." Boxed wine and UFO documentaries should come with warning labels. So should Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Consulting Conspiracy

**Author's Note:**

> Quite short! Based on [this post](http://marcelock.tumblr.com/post/124344844613/sherlock-watches-a-ufo-documentary-in-the-middle)  
> This has not been beta'd or brit picked at all so I do apologize!!! This is also technically the first fic I've written all the way through, so, that's fun? Comments and critiques would be appreciated if you're amenable! Thank you so much for reading!!!

Maybe the reason Sherlock Holmes followed people everywhere they went was because he knew the value of privacy. Monitoring someone twenty four hours a day makes sense when you’re in the business of knowing, as it seemed like everyone else in the world was in the business of making-sure-you-never-find-out-what-I’m-doing.

  
For example: if you were to ask John Watson what his flatmate turned business partner turned best friend turned boyfriend was getting up to at half three in the morning on a particularly rainy Tuesday, drinking too much boxed wine and watching UFO conspiracy documentaries on Netflix was probably not on his short list of ideas.

  
Now if you were to _tell_ John Watson about his flatmate turned business partner turned best friend turned boyfriend’s late night forays into alcohol and aliens, he would be the picture of surprise. _Surely this must be for some experiment?_ He may ask, as this is not in the realm of things his consulting bedmate was wont to do. Thus is the nature of privacy: to keep the surprises a secret. Nobody needed to know what Sherlock got up to unless he wanted them to.

  
The night started in a fashion next to normal, Sherlock was on the sofa in his skivvies and his most dramatic red dressing gown, furiously searching the web for any and all information he could find on a certain Mr. Lancaster Smithe. Lancaster Smithe, adept in bank robbing and wooing the ladies, was also adept at covering his tracks. He contacted all of his ‘business’ partners through private messaging systems and in coded comments on a forum.

  
The forum? _The Seekers: a gathering space for like minded people to discuss UFOs, Aliens, and the government’s role in covering them up._

  
This is where the boxed wine came in.

  
“Oh for god’s sake” he said, downing the first glass he’d poured from the box he kept hidden in the back of the fridge. _(It wasn’t that John didn’t know Sherlock drank, it’s just Sherlock didn’t need John knowing about his and Mrs. Hudson’s wine/gossip/crap telly dates that occurred every week when John went to the pub with his mates)_ It was already chalking up to be a long night, and he was going to need some loosening up to sit through what he considered brainless drivel.

  
Project Blue Book, Area 51, Betty and Barney- it was asinine, but he had to give these people at least a little credit, they _did_ do their research, even if their source material was nothing but like-minded crackpots. Several dozen comment threads later and upon his second glass of wine, he began musing his own take on extraterrestrial life. Obviously there had to be some- to say in a universe that is exponentially larger than the largest thing imaginable, that a planet smaller than a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things could be the only inhabitant of life was completely preposterous. But to say these cosmic neighbors of ours had actually managed to make it all the way across the galaxy just to do a poor job of setting up civilization? Sherlock would have none of it.

  
Somewhere in the 30th comment thread he had checked, and just before he hit send on an email to Dimmock about the lead he had uncovered, he found a link to a youtube video. It seemed to be pertinent to Smithe’s most recent misdoing and was crucial to check out. This is where his third glass of wine came in. He watched the video until the three minute mark whereupon he realized where the crook would strike next, cried out in victory, hushed himself embarrassedly as he remembered John was asleep, then sent the email.

  
This was the part of the night where Sherlock would usually close his laptop, congratulate himself on being a genius and go join his soft warm boyfriend under the even softer and warmer duvet, but something swirling in the haze of his mind was keeping him. Tentatively, he pressed play. The video still had five minutes to go. He felt intrigued.   Why was he so interested in this nonsense? Surely he was too smart to fall for such hoaxes, such trite buffoonery! Anyone who took ten minutes to research the real truth could debunk these in a flash, yet he couldn’t look away. There were links to more of these videos, there were entire documentaries. Several names floated by, names brought up by the posters he quickly identified as ‘experts’ in the ‘field’.

  
Typing the names of these documentaries into Netflix’s search bar was coincidentally around the same time he stopped counting the number of glasses of wine he drank that evening.

  
Two hours later Sherlock roused himself from his position on the sofa, patting his hands all around him, searching for his phone. He clicked it on without thinking and the bright screen in the black room burned his retinas. Above the photo of he and John together, read the time on the lock screen: 03:23. _Shit_.

  
He tried to collect his thoughts enough to light his way back to the bedroom to get some real sleep, when suddenly every piece of information he had absorbed that night came back, swirling rapidly around in the foyer of his mind palace, like debris blown in from a storm when someone leaves the front door open. He shook his head, trying to find some clarity, but the alcohol he had consumed made his brain feel like it was floating in a dark lagoon, totally unable to find balance.

  
_Roswell, black eyes_

  
_Men in black suits...men not in black suits never being heard from again_

  
_Mulder? A faded memory picked up in childhood, picked up in passing_

  
_Close encounter...close...John...close…love to be close to John..._

  
_The government, aliens, cover up, the government covered up the aliens_

  
_The government, Mycroft is the government_

  
_Major Barrymore, aliens? Yes, he said_

  
_Mycroft covered up the aliens_

  
_Mycroft knows_

  
_Abbott and Costello???_

  
_If Mycroft knows, ask Mycroft_

  
_Ask and you shall be told_

  
_“Do you love me Sherlock?” “Yes I do, John”_

  
_You shall be told the truth_

  
_The truth, aliens, the government-_

  
Sherlock found himself with a phone pressed up against his ear despite not remembering hitting the call button. Sherlock found himself threatened by a very disgruntled Mycroft if the words about to leave Sherlock’s mouth did not involve an emergency.

  
They did not.

  
Mycroft groaned internally.

  
“Are you covering n’up aliensth Mycroff?”

  
Mycroft groaned audibly.

  
 “Answer me this! _hic_ Instant!”

  
“You’re drunk!”

  
“And YOU are the government! I know what the..the government…ugh! Mycroft! Tell me about the Aliens right now!”

  
“Fine, brother dear... _or should I say adoptive brother dear?_ Mummy and daddy picked you up in a crop circle...and _I_ had to get a job in the government to protect you from getting dissected. You can thank me later! Now good _night!_ ” Mycroft clicked his phone shut with an air of disgust at having played along with his drunken brother’s night follies, though he had to give himself credit for being so spry in the wee hours of the day at his age. Meanwhile Sherlock, letting his phone slide out of his hand as it went slack, gaped into the abyss of the darkened flat for several moments as he contemplated the information he was just given. He then did the next logical thing: ran to the bathroom and flipped the light switch (unfortunately once again forgetting that lights are bright, and cursing himself) and began poking and prodding his own face in the mirror. Having seen so many human bodies both inside and out, he was anxious to spot the differences in his newly discovered alien body. Just as he lifted his upper lip in order to examine his teeth and gums in the mirror, a sleep drunk John wandered into the bathroom, confused at the traditionally drunk Sherlock in front of him.

  
“Sher...wha?” he forced his eyes to adjust to the light and took in the sight of Sherlock, hair ruffled, shirt rucked halfway up his abdomen from sleeping on the sofa, face blushing and eyes wide as he stood frozen with his teeth on display, staring back at his boyfriend.

  
“Oh John! It all makes sensth now!”

  
“I still don’t- what? Sherlock it’s three in the-”

  
"John, John, John! John...John, listen,”

  
“Sherlock would you just,” he reached for the detective’s wildly flailing hand which seemed to try and pluck the words he couldn’t find from the air around him

  
“John….I…………....am an Alien.”

  
John stared at Sherlock.

  
Sherlock stared at John.

  
“You’re an alien.”

  
“My parens found me! Inna crop circle! Mycroft told me! And I-” A look of pure dread and fear suddenly washed over Sherlock’s flushed face, he turned paler than a sheet and John tightened the grip on his hand

  
“Sherlock, are you-”

  
Sherlock was throwing up in the sink.

  
_Lovely._ John nodded. _Beautiful. This is the love of my life, holding my hand while he throws up in the sink and raves on about aliens in the middle of the night. Amazing._ John contemplated whether his previous thought was sarcastic or not.

  
(it wasn’t)

  
Sherlock had enough sense left to rinse his mouth out with the faucet before standing back up and continuing his spiel “-and Mycrofff had to stop them from dissecting me! It all make sensth John! Everything makes sensth!” he put his other hand with the one still in John’s tender grip

  
"I’m sorry, what exactly makes sense?”

  
Sherlock appeared lost in thought again, only this time his frantic energy was replaced with an air of melancholy. He looked just shy of a small child realizing he’ll never get his favorite teddy back. “It...why I’m so different.” Sherlock’s voice sounded so small.

  
The moment of understanding hit John harder than he'd expected as he closed his eyes and fought back his emotions. He then opened his arms and told Sherlock promptly to “Come here”. Sherlock complied, laying his head down on John’s shoulder, letting out some tears he didn’t know he was holding in. They stood like that for a long time, swaying slightly on the cool tile floor.

  
“Maybe you are an alien.”

  
Sherlock remained silent.

  
“I’ve never met any human as amazing as you are.”

  
They stood like that for a very long time before crawling back into bed. John never let go of Sherlock.

  
Sherlock never let go of John’s words.

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine John found Sherlock's internet history and empty wine glass the next morning and put two and two together. I also imagine he scolded a certain someone about lying to his little brother when he's drunk in the middle of the night.


End file.
